“When I arrived, reception told me to go to his room . He opened the door in his bathrobe .

“I was incredibly naive and young and it did not cross my mind that this older , unattractive man would expect me to have any sexual interest in him .

“After declining alcohol and announcing that I had school in the morning I left, uneasy but unscathed.

“A few years later he asked me if he had tried anything with me in that first meeting .

“I realised he couldn’t remember if he had assaulted me or not .

“I had what I thought were boundaries - I said no to him professionally many times over the years-some of which ended up with him screaming at me calling me a c*** and making threats, some of which made him laughingly tell people oh “Kate lives to say no to me.”

“It speaks to the status quo in this business that I was aware that standing up for myself and saying no to things, while it did allow me to feel uncompromised in myself, undoubtedly harmed my career and was never something I felt supported by anyone other than my family.”

She continued: “I would like to applaud the women who have come forward , and to pledge that we can from this create a new paradigm where producers, managers, executives and assistants and everyone who has in the past shrugged and said “well, that’s just Harvey /Mr X/insert name here “ will realise that we in numbers can affect real change.

“For every moment like this there have been thousands where a vulnerable person has confided outrageous unprofessional behaviour and found they have no recourse, due to an atmosphere of fear that it seems almost everyone has been living in .”

Beckinsale added she told a male friend about her experience, who then warned a young actress who was going to dinner with Weinstein to be careful of him.

She said: “He received a phone call the next day saying he would never work in another Miramax film; the girl was already sleeping with Harvey and had told him that my friend had warned her off.

“Let’s stop allowing our young women to be sexual cannon fodder,and let’s remember that Harvey is an emblem of a system that is sick,and that we have work to do.”